American Iambs for Springtime

I couldn’t stop movin’ when it first took hold
It was a warm spring night at the old town hall
There was a group called The Jokers, they were layin’ it down
Don’t cha know I’m never gonna lose that funky sound

Rock and roll, Hoochie Koo / Lawdy mama light my fuse
Rock and roll, Hoochie Koo / Truck on out and spread the news

The skeeters start buzzing ’bout this time o’ year
I’m goin’ round back, she said she’d meet me there
We were rollin’ in the grass that grows behind the barn
When my ears started ringin’ like a fire alarm

Rock and roll, Hoochie Koo / Lawdy mama light my fuse
Rock and roll, Hoochie Koo / Truck on out and spread the news

Hope ya’ll know what I’m talkin’ about
The way they wiggle that thing really knocks me out
I’m gettin’ high all the time, hope ya’ll are too
Come on a little closer, gonna do it to you

Rock and roll, Hoochie Koo / Lawdy mama light my fuse
Rock and roll, Hoochie Koo / Truck on out and spread the news

That I’m tired of payin’ dues / Done said goodbye to all my blues
Lawdy mama light my fuse

 

AND NOW,
The MFA Modern Lit re-write:

spring: The Jokers
(in Hoochie-Koo, the lawdy Hoochie Koo—)

and so the laying-down
until fuse lit

the mama lawdyspread, a truck
trucking the news;

skeeters buzz the grass, rolling, rolling
alarmed: the barn fire

// she had said she would meet me//

in Hoochie-Koo (the lawdy Hoochie Koo)

wriggling, spring knocked
higher // closer than time had known

bitten, dues paid, bit-lit

illiterate

mama lit that fuse
in Hoochie-Koo, the lawdy

Name of a City

https://connecthook.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/0df85-boston1.jpg
So many people have come and gone… their faces fade as the years go by
Yet I still recall as I wander on — as clear as the sun in the summer sky
                                                                                                                            BOSTON

Your name remains: a magic word
to conjure nights of springs long-gone.
I muse upon your face, alone
and find my heaven’s hope deferred.
Since unpoetic life occurred,
Romance has gilded scenes long dead.
Nostalgic memory has fed
the embers of a fire you stirred.
You turned and walked out of my days.
I never heard your voice again.
Yet memories of you amaze
Engraved in my adoring brain.
In labyrinths we wander free
to meet again eventually.

or decasyllables . . .  which is better ?

Your name remains with me. A magic word
To conjure nights and scents of springs long-gone.
I muse upon your tawny face, alone
And find my heaven’s hope now long–deferred.
Since unpoetic life and age occurred,
Romance has gilded scenes that lie long dead.
Nostalgic memory of you has fed
The smoldering embers of a fire you stirred.
One spring, you turned and walked out of my days.
I never heard your feline voice again.
Yet memories of you, intense, amaze
Engraved for good in my adoring brain…
On, through the labyrinths, we wander free
To meet in time again, celestially.

 

Something Japanese:
carp-pools, bamboo, some old monk . . .
yes—Oriental !

What Poetry Is (n’t)

Due to erroneous Modernist and Postmodernist assumptions,
we must define poetry in terms of negatives.

Poetry is not words to be declaimed or sung. Poetry is words printed on a page, meant to be read in private, in contemplation, and in a place where sustained mental focus is possible. The voice of the poet is relatively unimportant; the  explicit or implicit message of a poem is. Poetry is not about saying things in new ways  or pushing the boundaries of language. The role of poetry is not to agitate for social change, although that may be an indirect secondary side-effect. Poetry is not convulsive unburdening of personal esthetic/emotional observations. Just because snow on a tree-limb looked beautiful to you, please don’t write a haiku about it. Poetry is not ephemeral or disposable. It must be composed of words which will endure long enough to be viable either short-term or long-term. Intentional obscurantism is the unpardonable poetic crime. Esoteric cryptography is not to be considered valid poetry. Ad jingles and Hallmark card verses constitute a more noble art than linguistic obfuscation. Say what you want to say poetically. Then work and re-work it.

Poetry is the most useless of arts and the most important. Why? Because it is difficult to commodify. But don’t fall for that drivel they taught you in school, “poetry is whatever you want it to be“. I call BS on that RIGHT NOW. Don’t just vomit it out there and make us clean it up. Dang. The hell wrong wit chu people?  Poetry knows who you are and where you LIVE. Poetry is not playing around—those days are long over. Poetry kicked your English teacher’s cowardly ass and then spat on the semi-conscious twitching body before paying for everyone’s drinks and dancing her way out the emergency exit.  What is poetry? I have NO IDEA, but Poetry knows. Problem is, that bitch won’t tell me.  I still love her, though.

WRITE ON